Withdrawal Symptoms from Abusive Relationship

The uprising of the Egyptian people and the US administration's confused response provide an excellent opportunity to look in depth at the long relationship between the United States and successive Egyptian governments, especially with the Mubarak government over the past 30 years, and at where that relationship might be headed. US officials repeatedly call Egypt (by which they mean the government) a key ally that has been useful to US interests in the Middle East, usually couched in general terms such as preserving peace and stability and cooperating in 'counter-terrorism' activities. One of the best analyses of the military share of US aid to Egypt, which amounts to about $40 billion since 1979, was prepared by the US government's own General Accountability Office in 2006. Its breakdown is a little out of date but it remains of great interest to see what the United States receives in return for this largesse. 'Largesse' is perhaps not the most apposite word since most of the money goes to US arms manufacturers and to consultancy firms and contractors who send US trainers and specialists to Egypt to oversee the integration of hardware into the Egyptian armed forces. It also pays for training Egyptian military personnel in the United States. On top of the military aid, there has also been economic assistance for civilian projects, amounting to several hundred million dollars a year in recent years. The 2006 report listed the goals of the military aid programme as   (1) modernizing and training Egypt’s military; (2) facilitating Egypt’s participation as a coalition partner; (3) providing force protection to the U.S. military in the region; and (4) helping guarantee U.S. access to the Suez Canal and overflight routes. It said the long-term outcomes were: a continued and improving collaborative relationship with the US, stability in the Middle East, no war between Egypt and Israel, and a strong relationship between US and Egypt. Between 2001 and 2005 Egypt provided over-flight permission to 36,553 U.S. military aircraft through Egyptian airspace and granted expedited transit of 861 U.S. naval ships through the Suez Canal, with all security support for the ship transits. That level of overflights, which coincided with the US invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2005, works out at about 20 a day, far more than most people were aware of before the report was published. Although the military aid programme makes much of interoperability (jargon for the ability to use each other's equipment), in practice the United States and Egypt have fought side by side only in Kuwait in 1991, when Egyptian forces played the role of token Arabs in a Western campaign.  So much for the military aspect.
    In the security sphere, it is now common knowledge that the United States outsourced to Egypt some of the interrogation under torture of what they call 'terror suspects' it picked up in Iraq and Afghanistan or abducted here and there around the world. I have not seen a good assessment of the number of victims or of the quality and value of the information that the Egyptian torturers obtained on the behalf of the United States. Judging at least by the quality of the information the Egyptian police and state security seem to extract from their victims (evident in the Interior Ministry's detailed statements about extremist groups), I suspect it was of marginal value. 
    In the civilian and diplomatic sphere, the benefits to either side are even harder to quantify, since they are largely intangible. But in the years since Hamas won elections to the Palestinian legislature in 2006 and especially since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, the Egyptian government has played an ignominious role in conjunction with Israel, the United States and the Palestinian Authority in trying to undermine and destroy Hamas. It was complicit in the unsuccessful 2007 conspiracy to have Fatah defeat Hamas in Gaza by military force. It has since collaborated in the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which has caused extreme suffering and deprivation to the million and a half people who live in the densely populated territory. During the Israeli attacks on Gaza in early 2008, the Egyptian government allowed Israeli warplanes to overfly Egypt to attack targets in Gaza. These activities have been of benefit primarily to the Israeli government, and secondarily to the United States only in the sense that the United States identifies with Israel's regional objectives. At one point the United States and Israel outsourced to Egypt the task of trying to persuade Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and to endorse a common position with Fatah for peace talks. Egypt failed in both those attempts.   
   The United States also has commercial interests in Egypt, just like other countries, but there is no special relationship here. Egypt is no longer a significant oil exporter and it sells its gas to a diverse range of customers,  including the United States (about 35 percent of LNG exports and 24 percent of all gas exports in 2009). Egypt is one of the world's biggest wheat buyers but it buys on the open market according to price and availability, with no special preference for the United States.
    Taken as a whole, it is clear that from the US government's point of view Egypt's importance lies mainly in preserving the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1979 (the starting point for the aid programme) and cooperating in U.S. and Israeli military operations against their common regional enemies (Hamas, al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein etc). The other elements pale into insignificance in comparison.
    It is too early at this stage to say what kind of government Egypt will have in 12 months' time. The next president could be either Omar Suleiman, who would maintain Mubarak's policies, some other establishment figure, a liberal democrat such as Mohamed ElBaradei, or a unexpected populist who might emerge over the next months from the turmoil of the new Egypt. A Muslim Brotherhood president is out of the question, since the Brotherhood has renounced any presidential ambitions this time round. No president would have any interest in provoking Israel into outright conflict. The most they might attempt is to ease the blockade of Gaza, open a more balanced dialogue with Hamas and speak out more forcefully to express Egyptian views on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. These are objectives a sensible administration in Washington should accept, though they probably would not. The next Egyptian government is very unlikely in the near future to seek a review of the peace treaty, even of the clauses which require diplomatic relations and which limit Egyptian army deployments in parts of Sinai. But a new government might not want to continue receiving US aid in its present form, because of the widespread impression among Egyptians that the aid infringes on the country's sovereignty. Its economic value has been declining with inflation for the past 30 years and it would be no great loss to the country as a whole. The main losers would be the army generals, who would no longer receive a steady supply of fancy military hardware which they never use in combat.
    All in all, the advent of a new Egyptian government, the first with a popular mandate since the 1950s, is something Israel and the United States can easily live with. It might even persuade the Israelis to reconsider policies based on racism and on overwhelming force. Their current state of panic is merely a withdrawal symptom from an unhealthy and abusive relationship which no one should lament.

Democracy Not Yet

The United States might be having second thoughts about putting all their bets on Egyptian spy chief Omar Suleiman, the new vice president they wanted to see as successor to Hosni Mubarak. The aging intelligence agent might be good for skewering impotent Palestinians on Israel's behalf but when it comes to dealing with millions of empowered Egyptians, the man has the political acumen you would expect from someone who is used to giving orders and being obeyed, not someone who treats his compatriots as intelligent equals. His brief interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC television contains two faux pas which politically aware Egyptians will not soon forget. Firstly his claim that "it is the Islamic current that pushed these people (the protesters)" is patently laughable to anyone who has spoken to a cross-section of the people in Tahrir Square. But the remark that is most likely to turn opinion against him was this one: "For sure everyone believes in democracy. But when will you do that? When the people have the culture of democracy." It was reminiscent of former Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's remark in 2005 that Egyptians were not yet yet "mature" enough for democracy. Interestingly both Suleiman and Nazif were speaking to foreign reporters, in the naive belief that Egyptians would never hear their remarks. Nazif's staff tried to lean on reporters to "correct" his remark, but their arguments did not stand up.
    On Tuesday Suleiman spoke to Egyptian newspaper editors and revealed more of his authoritarian and security-obsessed mentality. Here are some highlights of his remarks, paraphrased by the Egyptian state news agency MENA:
The word 'departure' which some of the protesters are shouting is against the theics of Egyptians, who respect their elders and their president. The word is not only an insult to the president, but also to the whole Egyptian people. President Mubarak is one of the heroes of the October war and the military establishment is protective of the October heroes.

    (I say) no to finishing off the regime and no to a coup because that means chaos, which could take the country to the unknown which no one wants.
    The large presence of protesters in Tahrir Square and some of the satellite channels, which are insulting Egypt and understating its value, are making Egyptians reluctant to go to work.
    President Mubarak has complied with a large proportion of the demands which are possible in the time frame available... He favours a real rotation of power and there is no problem achieving this, but we have to think of Egypt's future and who will lead the way in the coming period. It's not the person of the president but  his specifications and his inclinations. We don't want to find there are new requirements in every period. We want studied and stable adjustments.
    The revolution of the youth has some positive aspects but we must not slip into the negative aspects ... Pressures and effects will never be in the interests of society but will be an invitation to more chaos and for the bats of the night to come out and alarm society. We are confident that Egypt is being targeted and this is an opportunity for them and not for change, but all they are interested in is weakening Egypt and creating chaos, the extent of which God alone knows.
    There have to be conditions for those who stand for the presidency, otherwise more than 600 people for example would stand and it would be a farce for Egypt, so the constitutional lawyers must set out what is proper to the position of president.
    One element in the crisis is the shortfall in the capacity of the police after many police stations were destroyed and thousands of prisoners escaped. The ones we are interested in are some hardcore criminals and jihadi groups which threaten security since they still believe that society is 'infidel' and this is a big threat to society and it will take great effort to get them back. The General Intelligence worked hard to have these people extradicted from abroad. They are connected with foreign leaderships, especially al Qaeda.
    A million tourists have left the country in nine days and there is not a single tourist left, and this affects a major resource for the state, since tourism brings the state about $1 billion a month. Growth will fall to 3.4 percent at the most, which means more unemployment and this is one of the threats to national security.
    The president is staying in Egypt and will not leave. He is managing a road map until his term ends and when the new president comes he will make changes as he wants.
    All the youngsters arrested in the recent events have been released and there is not a single prisoner of opinion unless he committed a crime.
    The president is in good health and there is no agreement with (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel on anything. What she announced is flagrant interference in our internal affairs (apparently a reference to rumours that she invited Mubarak to Germany for 'medical care').
    The (Egyptian) media addresses the Egyptian masses, and not just the youth of Jan 25, so that they (the masses) know that the regime can still fulfil its role.

Judge for yourself.

Egyptian regime 'amazed, taken by surprise'

Wael Ghoneim, the young Google executive who helped organise the January 25 protests in Cairo and has spent the last 12 days in detention with State Security, gave a very emotional interview with Mona el-Shazli on Dream TV on Monday evening. The new secretary general of the National Democratic Party, Hossam Badrawi, took him home to his family earlier in the evening. It was fascinating from a personal point of view in itself but Wael also make some interesting remarks about his contacts with Badrawi and with the new interior minister, Mahmoud Wagdi. 
    Badrawi told him that all the bad elements in the party had been cleaned out and the party was making a fresh start, he said. Wael was not impressed and told him the party was rotten to the core and Badrawi should abandon it.
    His interrogators, apparently xenophobic and ill-informed about the mood of ordinary Egyptians, were initially convinced that there were foreign and Muslim Brotherhood elements behind the organisation of the protests on January 25 and wanted to know who they were. Wael thinks he managed to convince them that it was an entirely indigenous and spontaneous youth initiative.
    I repeat in full his version of what Wagdi told him because of the light it throws on the thinking of the security establishment.

The (interior) minister said 'I've only been minister for seven days. You have achieved gains, and no one expected that. How did you do all that? All of us, those inside the party, inside the political system, were amazed, taken by surprise. We couldn't understand what was happening. Now the situation is over. We won't go back again. We are going forward. We'll all build the country, which we are all worried about it and which we love. There was a particular way (of dealing with people), but that way is changing now.'

    Wael said he has blindfolded and held incommunicado for 12 days. State Security didn't even inform his family that he was alive and in their hands. He broke down in tears at the end of the interview when the TV station screened photographs of some of the young people killed by riot police and by thigs during the protests.

War of Attrition

The struggle between the Egyptian regime and the protest movement has moved into a 'war of attrition' stage and there are no obvious options by which either side can break the deadlock decisively in its favour. The regime is playing on the economic disruption which the protests have caused, hoping that many people, especially small independent businessmen, will turn against the protesters because they cannot sustain prolonged losses. That is especially evident in the informal tourism sector and in the retail sector in central Cairo and other urban centres. After almost of sixty years of depoliticisation, unfortunately, many Egyptians have no idea of what good governance could be, especially those who have never travelled abroad to well-managed democratic countries. But it's unlikely that such sentiment will generate a counter-protest movement with the same commitment and energy as the protest movement itself, which has much to fear from a reinvigorated state. The regime is also reckoning on the corrosive effect of the state media, which continue to dismiss the protest movement as part of some incoherent foreign conspiracy. Behind the scenes, the state is no doubt trying to reconstitute the instruments of repression - the new interior minister today visited the premises of Central Security (riot police) in Darasa, northeast of the old city.
     On the other side of the equation, the protest movement shows no signs of erosion. The turnout in Tahrir Square has been large for the last two days, as the message spreads that the area is peaceful and festive, with little danger so far that visitors will be persecuted merely for attending. On Sunday evening people who left the area were chanting "Coming back tomorrow, coming back tomorrow." But it would hard to sustain a sit-in that continues for weeks without movement, and one might speculate that the organisers are thinking of new ways to maintain the momentum they had generated.
    On the international front the pressure on Mubarak has clearly eased. When US envoy Frank Wisner said on Saturday that Mubarak had to stay to oversee the 'reform' process, those who sympathised with the protesters were pleased that the State Department distanced itself from his remarks and Arabic television stations (along with 'Wise Man' Naguid Sawiris) said the administration would relieve of his position. But that dies not seem to have happened and in interviews on Monday State Department spokesman PJ Crowley gave the impression that the timing of Mubarak's departure was up to the Egyptians. It's more than a little reminsicent of the US position on Israeli-Palestinian talks -- let them work it between themselves, regardless of any principles and regardless of the gross disparity between the power of the two sides.
    Josh Stacher, who knows Egypt well and whose intellect I respect, writes in Foreign Affairs:

With Suleiman at the helm, the state's objective of restoring a structure of rule by military managers is not even concealed. This sort of "orderly transition" in post-Mubarak Egypt is more likely to usher in a return to the repressive status quo than an era of widening popular participation.

That's certainly a real possibility but not a foregone conclusion. The attitude of Vice President Omar Suleiman is now relatively transparent, after his interview with Nile TV, and it's likely that armed forces chief of staff Sami Anan shares his views, but the dynamics of the relationships at the summit of power is still opaque. The behaviour of the soldiers on the streets also remains mysterious - they are checking identities more carefully and are suspicious of devices such as cameras and tape recorders.   

Small acts of heroism

Do read Mohammed Bamyeh's essay on the Egyptian uprising, which stitches together many of the themes evident in the protest movement, particularly the way that participation in such a movement makes people more confident, more generous, more courteous, more aware of their compatriots. It's been evident in a hundred little ways - people walking through the crowds hanging out sweets and dates to people they've never met, people standing in line and reprimanding those who try to cut in, people going around Tahrir Square and voluntarily picking up litter, people discussing the future of their country with people to whom they would not previously have given the time of day. One little incident that impressed me was at an army checkpoint after curfew time on the Nile Corniche last night when the soldier asked a middle-aged man in front of me where he was coming from. The man hesitated for just a second, then looked the soldier straight in the eye, puffed out his chest and said "I was in the square." It was a tiny gesture of defiance, not particularly brave, but I suspect that two weeks ago he would given some evasive answer, for the sake of an easy life. Then in Tahrir Square today I met one of the many minor heroes of the uprising, a middle-class architect from the prosperous suburb of Maadi, who gave me his detailed account of his adventures on January 28, the day that protesters overwhelmed the dreaded Central Security riot police and established a foothold in the square. His name was Shadi Attia, 31, and I trust he will not object if I publicise his story. Shadi told me that before January 28 he had never taken part in any political activities, but when he saw on the Internet what had happened on January 25 (the first day of protests) he felt embarrassed that the people of Maadi had made no contribution. He went to the mosque for Friday prayers without the slightest idea what would happen, if anything, and he did not know anyone there who intended to march. At the end of prayers, one man stood up in the crowd and said: "Come to me." About 200 gathered around him and the group set off. "At first it was all men, but as we went though Maadi the demographics began to change and women began to join." The first clash with the riot police took place near the Maadi Club and the officer was shocked by the size of the crowd that had coalesced. As they marched northwards towards the city centre, others joined. By the time of the afternoon prayer, the protesters prayed on al-Malek al-Saleh bridge, about four km south of Tahrir Square. They faced the toughest resistance on Kasr el-Aini, the main street running south from the square, and it was here that a U.S. embassy vehicle (he noted the registration number 185/73) drove through the crowd at high speed, killing several of the protesters (the embassy says it thinks the vehicle was stolen). Shadi saw the victims lying mangled on the roadway, and he told me in all honesty that he was of a squeamish disposition, not inclined to acts of bravery, and his first instinct was to run away. "But one of them reached out his hand and grapped me by my ankle." Shadi couldn't refuse his appeal so he picked him up and carried him on his shoulder to the nearby Kasr el-Aini hospital, where the emergency room was overwhelmed with the wounded. He then continued on his way up the street and made it into Tahrir Square after an odyssey which lasted some five or six hours and which changed Shadi for ever. On Sunday morning Shadi was helping organise deliveries of food to those who have been camping out in the square. There are thousands of similar stories out there, all of them heroic in their little ways.         

Protesters have a quiet night in Tahrir

I was down in Tahrir Square again this morning and the mood is even more buoyant than usual, and the turnout is strong too. The signals from the dialogue between Suleiman and others, including the Brotherhood, are very confusing, and it could take some time for the fog to clear. But there's a description I wrote for Reuters this morning (presumably their copyright):

    Morning coffee is brewing on the wood fire outside Mohamed
Awad's plastic sheeting shelter in Tahrir Square, the hub of the
Egyptian protest movement demanding the resignation of
President Hosni Mubarak.

    At a makeshift stall nearby he can buy a wide selection of
newspapers to read over breakfast. After rare light rain
overnight the sun is up, and sleepy heads are coming out of the
blankets where they have spent another quiet night.

    The thugs who attacked the protesters for three days with
rocks and petrol bombs last week have backed off and the
Egyptian army is doing its usual thing - not very much.

    A hard core of protesters, backed by a broad popular
movement which has brought millions out on the streets, say they
are determined to stay in the square in central Cairo until
Mubarak, after 30 years in office, gives up and leaves office.

    They are settling down for the long haul, in some cases
abandoning their former lives for a cause they believe in.

    People have brought in more dumpsters for rubbish, one of
them labelled "Headquarters of the National Democratic Party" --
the Mubarak party which has been a target of their anger.

    Except for two quick trips home to Shubra in north Cairo,
Awad has been in Tahrir Square most of the time since Jan. 28,
the Day of Anger when the protest movement made the transition
from a small middle-class group into a broad-based wave.

    "I'll be here till he goes," said Awad, who is 25,
unemployed and has a bandage on his forehead, a badge of honour
in Tahrir Square. The protesters want to rename it Martyrs
Square in memory of the 300 Egyptians who have died.

    Osama Karrar, 42, organises trade fairs abroad and should
have been in Ukraine on business this week. "I've given up
everything to be here. I've travelled a lot and I have seen
freedom and I want to see it here," he said.

    "Of course I'm losing money, but that's nothing compared
with the price of freedom," he added.

    Yahya Haidar, a certified accountant in his 60s and a member
of the Muslim Brotherhood, is also deeply committed, opposed
even to dialogue with Mubarak's vice president, Omar Suleiman,
who has started talks with members of the opposition on a
solution to the crisis.

    "Dialogue is a waste of time, which is what the regime
wants. We don't want Omar Suleiman. He's a military man who just
gives orders. If he stays, we will stay," Haidar told Reuters.

    The mood was grown increasingly festive as the danger of
attack diminishes and the number of participants hold up.

    Muslim-Christian unity was one of the themes on Sunday.
Members of Egypt's Coptic Christian minority said mass in the
square and many of the placards combined the Muslim crescent and
the Christian cross. "Hand in hand" was a common chant.

    The other theme was honour to the martyrs. People held up
photographs of them and said special prayers for their souls.

    Outside the enclave held by the protest movement, normal
life is beginning to resume in the city of more than 15 million.
The banks reopened on Sunday, along with some other businesses
closed for the past 10 days.

    But not everyone is happy with the disruption. "Those kids
in Tahrir are just a bunch of troublemakers and they are ruining
business. They need to go home so we can get on with our lives,"
said a Christian money changer. He declined to give his name,
saying he was frightened the Brotherhood would come to power.

   

The "Useful" Bogeyman and the Liberal Response

The confrontation between the Mubarak regime and the people in Tahrir Square and the rest of the country is going through a relatively quiet phase. There wasn't any violence on the streets today. When a few tanks moved a few yards, it was news and everyone jumped to speculate whether they might move further. When there's a lull I sometimes just sit in front of the television and listen to what people have to say about the Egytian uprising. One thing that is beginning to irritate me quite intensely is the way interviewers don't think they have done their job properly unless they bring up 'fears' that free elections might work in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood. Every informed commentator on Egypt and Tunisia for the past month and a half has noted that Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt used their Islamist opponents as an excuse for rigging elections and excluding a significant part of their populations from the political sphere. Ben Ali went further, driving the Nahdha under ground, into exile or into prison on fabricated charges. Mubarak tried a slightly different approach, leaving them just enough space to show that they had a constituency and were more powerful than the liberal democrats. In fact, Mubarak and his new vice president, Omar Suleiman, have had a heyday in recent days, saying or hinting that Brotherhood 'infiltrators' were the driving force behind the wave of protests, which anyone on the ground could see was a blatant misrepresentation. Some reporters have engaged in 'beard surveys' to assess their presence in the crowds, as though everyone with a beard were a rabid Islamist bent on jihad. It really is time that the media laid off and listened to what Muslim Brotherhood members and leaders say, instead of trying to read their minds or asking loaded questions that reinforce the preconceptions of their audience, pandering to their Islamophobic prejudices. When the Nahdha was active in Tunisia in the late 1980s, Nahdha leaders used to call this phenomenon a 'proces d'intention' - a trial on the basis of what one thinks or intends to do. Do let's recognise that the Muslim Brotherhood represents a legitimate trend in Egyptian society and that, like any political movement, it is capable of adapting to new circumstances. It's not that I'm trying to defend the Brotherhood's views, with which I disagree, but I do believe that this obsession with the Brotherhood is unhealthy and runs the risk of perpetuating the same exclusionist approach practiced by Ben Ali and Mubarak. For decades, social liberals have hidden behind the authoritarian state to do the dirty work of keeping the Islamists out of politics. If there is be lasting change, the liberals have to take on the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology in the free marketplace of ideas,  instead of fretting and running for cover. That's what democracy is about. That's why the best democracies allows communists and fascists to run for office, in the confidence that a well-educated and well-informed public will not vote for them in large numbers. Sometimes people do vote for them, but that's because the liberals and secularists have not done their work properly. Many social liberals in the Arab world, especially in highly state-dominated countries such as Egypt and Tunisia, have not fully grasped the transformative power of functioning democracy, with open debate against a background of the rule of law . Democracy requires a certain courage and assertiveness, not hand-wringing and laments about the ignorance of the masses. For all these reasons, I plan to write as little as possible about the Brotherhood until they start to formulate policies for what hopefully will be a new era in Egyptians politics. Then we can start to judge those policies on their objective merits.